BERLIN 25 YEARS TO THE DAY AFTER THE FALL OF THE WALL

http://mauer.visitberlin.de/en/

I was there!!!!  I cannot believe it is 25 years since I saw the Wall come down, stood on the top and joined my friends hacking at it with a screwdriver, saw the joy on the faces of the East Berlin people as they entered West Berlin - many of them having never been 'over the other side'.   It is a moment I will never forget.  Lamplighter

Then:


Now:

Amazing that you were there, LL. I can hardly believe it has been 25 years.

Sabot wrote:Amazing that you were there, LL.  I can hardly believe it has been 25 years.

I had a phone call on 6 Nov from friends in W Berlin to get my a** on a plane and get over there tout suite. It was incredible, words could never really express what it felt like. LL

Wow, amazing, LL.

lily wrote:Wow, amazing, LL.

I'm watching it on CNN International - their cover is going on for the whole evening.   I wish i was there ....  What is also interesting is that Kristallnacht, The Night of Broken Glass, when the Nazis torched the synagogues and property of the Jews and killed quite a few as well, took place on 9 November 1938 and carried on into the late hours of 10 November.    LL

LL, how many can say they were there at the start?

lily wrote:LL, how many can say they were there at the start?

Who knows?   People became aware of things happening elsewhere; the main one being the Austrians and Hungarians dismantling the barbed wire that straddled the border between the two countries so that the East Germans who manged to get to Hungary were able to cross over into Austria as refugees.    The East Germans tried to stop the flood of escapees, but that didn't work as they then went into Czechoslovakia and out that way.  Gorby and the Hungarian PM deliberately looked the other way.    In  fact, Hungarians had been secretly crossing the border to buy necessities in Austria - a packet of American cigarettes and some hard liquor weas enough for the border guards to look the other way.    No wonder Hungary was called 'The happiest gulag in the USSR'!    LL

I remember it was the cars crossing that fascinated me, LL, those Trabants with the lawnmower engines spluttering into the West....I believe they're collectors' items now?

bb1 wrote:I remember it was the cars crossing that fascinated me, LL, those Trabants with the lawnmower engines spluttering into the West....I believe they're collectors' items now?

Yes, quite few became collectables, but here the poorer people still have Trabants.  I do not have one, in fact I am too tall to even get into one!   The engines were 2-stroke or 18hp, the body was made of a fiberglass-like Duroplast, reinforced with recycled fibers like cotton and wood. Someone once described it as a 'weedwacker in a plastic box'.   LL